Monday, March 10, 2014

“It was wonderful,” she said. “I so enjoyed having that extra hour Sunday
evening.”

“What extra hour was that?”
I asked.

“You know. Daylight
Savings Time,” she said.

“No one got an extra hour yesterday.” I said.

“What?” She responded. “Daylight Savings Time. An extra hour in the evening.”

“Did the sun shine for an hour longer on Sunday that it did
on Saturday?” I asked.

“Well, no . . .”

“Then what are you talking about? There is no extra hour!”

“You are saying the extra hour isn’t real. . .” She said.

“Of course it isn’t real.” I said. She looked sad.

“You want it to be real, that extra free hour of time in
your day, don’t you?” I asked.

“Yes.” She smiled. “I do.
And, whatever. . . It feels real
to me!”

Ahhhhhh!!!!

This whole conversation made my brain cramp. What would happen, I asked myself, if the
government suddenly ordered every private company, public agency, every church,
almost everybody in the USA to go to work one hour earlier? Put this way, surely there would be riots in
the street. People would scream. Somebody would occupy something! Experts would appear on cable TV shouting, “How
dare this intrusive, out-of-control ginormous, central planning, Soviet style government
infringe on our freedom!” Surely people
would rebel if such an order were given.
I can hear it now, a deep, sinister, Big Brotherly voice, “All citizens
will report for work one hour early beginning today.” Creepy! Put like this, I
believe that there would be massive resistance.

But the central planners in Washington know how to spin
things so that Big Brother sounds more like a kindly grandfather. They do a little legislative sleight of hand
and call their central plan to change time “Daylight Savings Time” and tout
imagined benefits. Then, presto, everybody
in the entire country goes to work an hour earlier whistling all the way and
saying stupid things like, “l love having an extra hour in my day golly gee!”

To make it worse, no one I know has any idea why the central
planners in Washington, D.C. change the time.
I did an unofficial poll with colleagues and friends. Some of the responses,

“I think it was done for the farmers. So they would have an extra hour of daylight
for farming.”

“I think it was done for the school children so they could
get on the bus earlier.”

“I think it was done so people could get more recreation
time in the evenings after work.”

“I think it makes manufacturing more efficient.”

“I think Ben Franklin did it.” And, so on and on goes the apologetic jibber
jabber.

How quick we are to accept and justify central planning! I suppose that setting everyone’s clock
forward or backward reaps a benefit for some people somewhere somehow but what
about the companies and the workers who don’t want to start working an hour
earlier today at the whim of a central planning Time Tsar? Why don’t they speak
up?

For that matter, what about people who don’t want to go to and pay for government
monopoly schools. Why don’t they protest against the central planners? What
about the government monopoly retirement insurance program known as Social
Security. Why don’t more people speak
out against the waste and the nearly one-hundred trillion dollars in unfunded Social Security and Medicare liabilities? Where are the protesters? What about the dollar killing Federal Reserve for heavens sake? Central planning on steroids that!

Speaking of Soviet style central
planning, what about people who want to choose their own health insurance and
their own health care providers but are now forced to participate in the new,
one-size-fits-all government run “AHC” health insurance/health care monopoly
(aka Obama Care)? Not enough time to complain? Come on! Use that extra hour to resist the time bandits!